Giants Coach Pat Shurmer Already Putting Mark On The Team

You have to wonder if new Giants head coach Pat Shurmer will be employing the same type of offense as he did as offensive coordinator in Minnesota.

Well, just ask tight end Rhett Ellison, who played under Shurmer with the Vikings and now is with Big Blue.

“Yeah, there’s definitely some similarities, and there’s been some tweaks,” said Ellison after Monday’s OTAs. “So, this offseason period has been good to kind of get back into what I used to know, and also what [Head Coach Pat] Shurmur put in when I wasn’t there. So, it’s been fun.”

It’s also going to be interesting to see if the high-powered offense in Minnesota will translate over with the Giants.

However, it’s going to be different in some respects, as per NFL betting sites, the Giants have different players and Shurmer will be tailoring is system to Big Blue’s strengths.

“Yeah, when I’m talking [about] system, it’s really just the language of how the plays are called because obviously football is football and it’s the game situations that are going to decide what plays you’re running,” Ellison said. “But as far as the system, it’s more number-based, but also concept-based. A lot of the systems are word-based and some systems are numbers, so it’s just a combination of that. So, yeah, that’s what I mean when I say different system.”

With Saquon Barkley joining Odell Beckham, Shurmer will be coming up with a number of different schemes for his players and he will be trying to be creative when they finally play on Sundays.

“Well, we think about that often,” Shurmer said. I just told the players that it’s not about the plays, it’s about the players. So we have to constantly look for the best ways to get them the ball. We did a couple of things creatively today, we saw a couple of matchups that we wanted where on defense they made good plays against us on the other side of the ball as well. So yeah, we’re always thinking about that. I think that’s the key to our game, it’s not just putting the players out there, but using them well and then the ones that warrant giving them the ball, you give them the ball and I think that’s what we try to do.”

But it also gives him flexibility too. With Barkley and Even Engram on the squad, there’s going to be times a third receiver won’t be necessary, unlike past years when it was a must for Eli Manning.

However, don’t count out a valuable No. 3.

“I think whether you are one, two or three; I think every player has a role,” Shurmer said. “I try not to talk about the first, the second or the third receivers. I think that’s something that when people start stacking up rosters and really depth charts outside the building. So we’re going to put the players in there and use them to the best of their ability and try to get them the ball. The fact that we have a pass catching tight end is something that is very valuable to a team because now a defense has to decide when you have two tight ends and him being one of them, him being Evan (Engram), that are they going to stay base or play nickel? And then the chess game begins from there.”